1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing roll and a thin-film forming elastic plate which can be easily fixed to a printing roll barrel by pressing an elastic plate holder mounted on the thin-film forming elastic plate against the printing roll barrel and which can be easily pulled over the printing roll barrel without wrinkling the thin-film forming elastic plate in fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel.
More specifically, as an apparatus for forming a macromolecular thin-film pattern used for electronic parts such as liquid crystal orientation films, a thin-film forming apparatus shown in FIG. 29 comprising the following components is known: an intaglio roll (A) having a plurality of ink cells; an ink supply means (B) having a doctor blade B2 for filling ink into the ink cells; a printing roll (C) having a thin-film forming elastic plate (E), installed on a barrel, to which the ink of an intaglio roll (A) is transferred; a printing table (D) for fixing thereto a to-be-printed material D2, to which the ink of the printing roll (C) is transferred. The present invention relates to a printing roll preferably used in such a thin-film forming apparatus and a thin-film forming elastic plate to be installed on the printing roll.
2. Description of the Related Art
A device, for fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll, to be used in such a thin-film forming apparatus is proposed by the present applicant and disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 3-348683. In the device, the thin-film forming elastic plate is installed on and removed from the surface of the printing roll barrel comprising a hooking portion having rotary type fixing screws and a pulling portion having rotary type pulling screws, with elastic plate holders having the printing roll-chucking holes for receiving the rotary type screws installed on both ends of an elastic portion of the thin-film forming elastic plate.
That is, the thin-film forming elastic plate is installed on the printing roll barrel as follows: The fixing screws of the hooking portion of the printing roll barrel are manually inserted into the printing roll-chucking holes of one of the elastic plate holders installed on the elastic portion; the fixing screws are manually tightened to fix the elastic plate holder to the printing roll barrel; the pulling screws of the pulling portion of the printing roll are manually inserted into the printing roll-chucking holes of the other elastic plate holder; and the pulling portion is moved by turning the pulling screws manually to apply tensile force to the elastic portion. In this manner, the thin-film forming elastic plate is installed on the printing roll barrel. In removing the thin-film forming elastic plate from the printing roll barrel, the pulling portion is moved by turning the pulling screws of the pulling portion manually to relieve the tensile force applied to the elastic portion; the fixing screws are loosened manually to release the thin-film forming elastic plate from the printing roll barrel; and the elastic plate holders are manually removed from the hooking portion of the printing roll barrel and the pulling portion thereof. In this manner, the thin-film forming elastic plate is removed from the printing roll barrel.
The above-described thin-film forming apparatus has the following problems:
(1) As described above, a chucking device comprising the hooking and pulling portions provided on the conventional printing roll barrel has only the fixing and pulling screws. Therefore, in order to fix the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel and release it therefrom, it is necessary to tighten and loosen the fixing screws manually and turn the pulling screws clockwise and counterclockwise manually. Thus, the operation of fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel and removing it therefrom takes time and labor and is performed inefficiently. PA1 (2) In fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel by the conventional chucking device, initially, the operation of pressing the elastic plate holder of the thin-film forming elastic plate against the printing roll barrel is performed by tightening the fixing screws manually; and after this operation is completed, the operation of preventing the elastic plate from being wrinkled by pulling the elastic plate over the printing roll barrel is performed by rotating the pulling screws manually. Unless these two operations are carried out in this order, a disadvantage occurs in that the elastic plate is pulled with the elastic plate holder floating over the printing roll barrel or the rotary type screws cannot be inserted into the printing roll-chucking holes of the elastic plate holders. PA1 (3) In the conventional chucking device, a manual operation is required to fix the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel and release it therefrom. Thus, dust which has risen from an operator himself, operator's clothes, and the floor of a work place attaches to the thin-film forming elastic plate. In addition, dust and oil which have attached to the operator's hands attach to the thin-film forming elastic plate. Accordingly, the thickness of ink which has been transferred to the thin-film forming elastic plate becomes nonuniform or the ink is polluted. PA1 (4) In the conventional chucking device, the hand may be sandwiched between the chucking device and the printing roll barrel and thus injured because it is necessary to pull the thin-film forming elastic plate and press the thin-film forming elastic plate against the printing roll barrel manually. PA1 the printing roll characterized by comprising: PA1 a first chucking means (12), having a first placing base (19) provided on a part of the circumferential surface of the printing roll barrel, for placing the first elastic plate holder on a front surface side of the first placing base when winding the thin-film forming elastic plate on the printing roll; a first chucking member (25) penetrating through a through-hole formed on the first placing base from a rear surface side thereof to the front surface side thereof and penetrating into the first printing roll-chucking hole of the first elastic plate holder; and a first driving portion (26), provided on a rear side of the first placing base, for engaging the first chucking member penetrated into the first printing roll-chucking hole with the first printing roll-chucking hole, thus installing the first elastic plate holder on the first placing base, and PA1 a second chucking means (13), having a second placing base (190) provided on a part of the circumferential surface of the printing roll barrel, for placing the second elastic plate holder on a front surface side of the second placing base when winding the thin-film forming elastic plate on the printing roll; a second chucking member (15) penetrating through a through-hole formed on the second placing base from a rear surface side thereof to the front surface side thereof and penetrating into second printing roll-chucking hole of the second elastic plate holder; and a second driving portion (16), provided on the rear side of the second placing base, for engaging the second chucking member penetrated into the second printing roll-chucking hole with the second printing roll-chucking hole, thus installing the second elastic plate holder on the second placing base. PA1 an elastic portion (1) to which printing ink is applied; PA1 a first elastic plate holder (2), for holding the elastic portion at a leading end thereof wound firstly around a printing roll, having a hand-chucking hole (7) which is held and released by a hand (6) installed on an arm of a robot and penetrates through the first elastic plate holder in a thickness direction of the elastic portion; and a first printing roll-chucking hole (80) which is held and released by a first chucking means (12) of a printing roll barrel (503) and penetrates through the first elastic plate holder in the thickness direction of the elastic portion; and PA1 a second elastic plate holder (3), for holding the elastic portion at a trailing end thereof wound lastly around the printing roll, having a hand-chucking hole (7) which is held and released by the hand installed on the arm of the robot and penetrates through the second elastic plate holder in the thickness direction of the elastic portion; and a second printing roll-chucking hole (81) which is held and released by a second chucking means (13) of the printing roll barrel (503) and penetrates through the second elastic plate holder in the thickness direction of the elastic portion.
Accordingly, in fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel, it is necessary to perform screw-turning operations twice in consideration of the screw-turning order. Hence, it takes time and labor to fix the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel and the fixing operation is performed inefficiently.
In addition, in releasing the thin-film forming elastic plate from the printing roll barrel, initially, the operation of loosening the tensile force applied to the elastic portion is performed by manually rotating the pulling screws; and after this operation is performed, the operation of releasing the plate holder from the printing roll barrel is performed by loosening the fixing screws manually. Unless these two operations are carried out in this order, a disadvantage occurs in that the rotary type screws are not pulled out from the printing roll-chucking holes of the elastic plate holders.
Accordingly, in releasing the thin-film forming elastic plate from being fixed to the printing roll barrel, it is also necessary to perform screw-turning operations twice in consideration of the screw-turning order.
As described above, in the conventional art, the operation of fixing the thin-film forming elastic plate to the printing roll barrel and releasing it therefrom takes much time and labor and is performed inefficiently.